Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. The performance improvements of many electronic devices are strongly linked to Moore's law. For example, the speed of microprocessors, capacity of memory devices capacitor, sensitivity of sensors, and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras are linked to Moore's law.
Moore's law continues to hold true because of on-going improvements in semiconductor processing techniques. These improvements allow fabrication facilities to fabricate smaller, lower power transistors that have faster switching times than previous technology generations, and to make these transistors on silicon wafers that are larger than previous generations of silicon wafers. For example, whereas previous technology generations may have been characterized by transistor gates having lengths of approximately 30 nm formed on silicon wafers having a diameter of 300 millimeters (so-called “300 mm wafers”), next generation technologies may be characterized by transistor gates having lengths of less than 10 nm formed on silicon wafers with a diameter of 450 millimeters (so called “450 mm wafers”). This combination of smaller transistors packed more tightly onto larger wafers (and larger integrated circuits) has powered significant technology advances in recent decades. Significant challenges arise when developing new technology nodes.